There are consequences to casting the Afghanistan war as a mission to stabilize Afghanistan, with the necessarily derivative objective of shoring up the Afghanistan government. As Matthew Yglesias points out, one of them is that you shouldn’t undercut the Afghan president when he says that he wants Afghan forces in full control of the country’s [...]

I’ll be working tonight to hit a Wired deadline, but if you’re in D.C., you should come out at 7 p.m. to the National Press Club, where the Miami Herald’s Carol Rosenberg and others will discuss covering Guantanamo Bay and the ground rules under which reporters operate.

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 638-10
July 20, 2010
DOD Identifies Army Casualty
The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.
Sgt. Justin B. Allen, 23, of Coal Grove, [...]

Via Glenn Greenwald, John McQuaid tweets:
WaPo’s failure to acknowledge earlier journalism on the privatization of intelligence is all about winning prizes cc @TimothyS
I can’t speak to the Post’s motivations. But there’s an unfortunate and archaic tendency in old-school media to avoid referencing the work of other reporters when possible — sometimes a piece is too [...]

Gregg Carlstrom provides the summary overview: Few concrete pledges, many broad aspirational goals. Why, it sounds like international summiteering!
Among the goals: President Karzai said he hopes the transition to full Afghan security responsibilities can occur by 2014, a date that Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the NATO secretary general, promptly caveated (“conditions-based,” etc.). The Afghan finance minister [...]

IMMEDIATE RELEASE No. 631-10
July 19, 2010
DOD Identifies Marine Casualty
The Department of Defense announced today the death of a Marine who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.
Staff Sgt. Justus S. Bartelt, [...]

I’ve slacked on this lately, I know. But today at Danger Room, Noah and I tried to distill the first installment of the Post’s “Top Secret America,” I arched an eyebrow at the ODNI pushback on the series, chortled at Hezbollah’s anti-Israel war museum and announced a hiatus/retooling of a feature I’m 100 percent committed [...]